Upregulation of miR‑375 inhibits human liver cancer cell growth by modulating cell proliferation and apoptosis via targeting ErbB2

Abstract

microRNAs (miRNA/miRs) are a class of small non-coding RNAs; they serve important biological roles in tumorigenesis through the regulation of oncogene expression, and they may be used for the diagnosis and treatment of human cancer. miR‑375 was identified to exhibit abnormal expression levels in a number of types of tumor; however, the biological role of miR-375 in human hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) remains incompletely characterized. The present study investigated the expression of miR-375 in human HCC tissues and human liver cancer cell lines; results from a reverse transcription quantitative polymerase chain reaction analysis indicated that the expression of miR‑375 was significantly decreased in tissues and live cancer cell lines, compared with normal tissues and PHH cells. Additional studies demonstrated that the upregulation of miR-375 inhibited human liver cancer cell growth via regulation of cell apoptosis. It was also revealed that the receptor tyrosine-protein kinase erbB-2 (ErbB2) gene was a direct target gene of miR-375, and that the regulation of ErbB2 was associated with the human liver cancer growth. Therefore, the present study demonstrated that miR-375 was expressed at low levels both in human HCC tissues and cell line, compared with normal tissues and PHH cells, and that the induction of miR-375 expression may regulate human liver cancer cell function through targeting the ErbB2 gene, which may potentially improve the diagnosis and treatment of patients with HCC in the future.